The War Machine
by flecksofpoppy
Summary: A few days after the war has ended, Heero ponders his place in the world and experiences beginnings, endings, and friendship without the grandiose notions of war to drive it. I actually really like this fic a lot. Genfic.


**The War Machine**  
Completed sometime...after 2002?. I always forget how much I like this one.

The war had been like one large unit comprised of smaller components within itself. There had been the two opposing sides, the soldiers, and the diplomats. There had been the machines, the mechanics and the scientists. They fit into the universe in such a neat way that was far too organized to be natural, and when the war ended "units" stopped being so important.

During the second incident, the parts had joined with one another and began making newer, faster more efficient units within the one large one. Wufei went over to Mariemaia's side, Zechs came over to the Gundams, and everyone was re-arranged. The opposing sides traded their parts but remained separate and had their own places. For all their differences, many of the parts had roughly the same goal, but they only worked with one another smoothly when united by war.

War, the ultimate machine that humanity had ever conceived of in any capacity, a way in which to segment people into groups and organize them, an act that civilization alone could never seem to do. Countries fell and were found, but it was usually the arm that fell first and then the army's country, and not vice versa.

Units were old news after Mariemaia and the great machine combusted, leaving its parts still wiggling a little, wondering where their counter-parts and roles in the great assembly line had gone. They were disoriented, as if waking from a terrible dream only to realize that the greatest reality was after the pain, after the fight. The cogs were custom-made for one type of living though, and they weren't sure quite how to work in this new organic mass of seething humanity.

One of the units, Trowa Barton, knew where he was going now, where he belonged. Sometimes in those days after the final battle, he would sleep and the war would seem like a distant, faraway winter he had been living for so long that he didn't know what the sun felt like. He would wake and the day would come slowly, and in strange moments it would feel as if this state of summer he now felt had always been here, an eternal thing, and that the war had been an invention of his mind.

He told Catherine that on the phone, and she told him that he was still having memory problems.

"When are you coming home?" was her next question.

"Tomorrow," he replied, looking at her sweaty face on the vidphone. She had just gotten done practicing a routine. "I'm taking the early shuttle out to L1."

She smiled at him and for once didn't say anything. The small displacement of his eyebrows, the lift of muscles in his cheeks was enough to tell her that he was ready to come home, even if he wasn't sure why or what he was going to do. It told her that he knew he finally belonged somewhere.

They hung up after saying good-bye, and Trowa made his way through the base he had been staying at. A few days had elapsed since Mariemaia had been defeated, and they had all been preparing themselves to go where ever they had to.

He saw Heero limping down the hall toward him at that moment, his chest bandaged where he had cracked some ribs and his arm hanging in a sling. His final feat had left him pretty banged up, but Trowa knew it wouldn't take his body too long to recover.

Heero stopped when he saw Trowa approaching, stopping to greet him with a look of acknowledgement. "Leaving tomorrow?" he asked.

Trowa nodded, taking a critical look at the bandaging job. "Who did that?"

The Wing pilot snorted. "An emergency medic," he shrugged and immediately regretted the action, letting his bad arm back into its natural position gingerly, "they'll be coming off soon anyway. It wasn't severe."

"At least it wasn't the other arm." Heero nodded at that.

They stood there for a moment, just looking at each other. Trowa wondered what their relationship was now; they were no longer united by being soldiers, had no duty to fulfill. What were they to each other?

"Come on," Heero motioned for Trowa to follow him. He did so out of sheer curiosity.

They made slow progress as Heero hobbled along, though it was all familiar ground for Trowa who had patched him up back when he had self-destructed nearly a year before.

When they finally reached a door, Trowa opened it for them and they found themselves outside where the sun had already disappeared behind the horizon. It wasn't much to look at, just a lot of rolling green, brown and mossy colored hills that arched up at almost unnatural circular angles. It looked like a picture a child had drawn with a choice of only three crayons. He raised a brow and turned to look at Heero who was settling himself down on the few steps that led to the ground. Trowa sat down next to him.

"What's out here?" he asked curiously, surprised at the fanciful little trip. Heero wasn't exactly what he would call a man of leisure.

"I don't know," he replied cryptically, fixing his gaze on the sky that had lazy, dark purple clouds still visible by a frail bit of light in it. "I know how it all looks on a map," he commented.

Trowa nodded. "Or from a few thousand feet," he replied dryly, and Heero made a "hmph" sound of agreement.

"I want to see it for what it is," he said, though his words carried a heaviness that spoke of a plan. "Did you ever see the world before becoming a soldier?" he asked, turning his gaze away from the horizon to look at Trowa.

"A little," he replied, and didn't say anything else. He didn't feel like uncovering the dark winter memories when the dream of summer was so close at hand.

"This is my life," Heero said in a disbelieving tone, stretching his hands out like a blind Justice weighing two scales. "Is what we fought for?" he asked.

"I fought for peace, not for myself," Trowa looked down at the steps, studying the stone. It was cracked and had moss growing in its crevices; this base had been in a state of disuse for a while. But it had a calmness to it that wasn't altogether unpleasant.

Heero studied Trowa's expression, wondering what he was thinking. He wasn't sure why he had dragged him out here with him to look at a few hills and the sky, but part of it had to do with the fact that the other pilot was leaving tomorrow. He'd never had to say good-bye before, or even had the strange sensation of finality without death that he had now.

When Trowa looked up expectantly, he looked as if he belonged in this world of green. His eyes were the same color as the hills, his calm expression just as calm as the world around them, the acceptance of an ending showing in his eyes.

"Do you know what it's like to care for someone?" Heero asked suddenly, his brow furrowing and he tore his gaze away.

"The only person I have ever cared for," he stopped mid-sentence, re-thinking the question, "I think is Catherine, in the way that you're asking. I care about her well-being, I worry for her, I value her opinion."

He paused, his eyes stilled in thought. "I also value the Gundam pilots, and our allies," he commented, "but it's different."

"Yes," Heero agreed. It was different, because they had long ago accepted the inevitable death of themselves and of their comrades; there was no fear of loss, at least by death.

"What about now, though?" he challenged, thinking. "What about now that death isn't the end of us after all?"

"Now that we're expected to live instead of die..." Trowa shrugged, leaving the sentence without a conclusion. "I don't know."

They sat there together for a while until night fell in its entirety, not saying anything. Heero had tilted his head back and closed his eyes, breathing in a state that was bordering on meditative as he drank in the natural sensations around them. The sky, the brisk chill in the air, the trees and the hills. It was all there, smelling of life.

He finally moved some time later, his eyes landing on Trowa as if he was almost surprised to still see him there. The other boy just regarded him dispassionately as he stood up, as if he knew he would never belong anywhere as naturally as most other people, but that it didn't bother him.

He waited for Heero to walk up the few steps they had descended. Before going in however, he spoke.

"Most people say good-bye to each other and shake hands when they're leaving," he said. Heero stopped and looked at him, processing his words.

"Good-bye, Trowa," he finally said, and stuck his good hand out.

"Bye, Heero," he replied, and they shook hands. It was a strange sensation for both of them. They just studied each other for a moment; they had spent nights in strange hotels together, had flown one another's Gundam, had gone through so many things that didn't seem very remarkable at the time, but now seemed like the only thing that linked them and the other pilots together.

As they returned inside and Trowa walked beside Heero, their footsteps seemed to be very quiet against the floor. The base seemed hollow, forgotten right now, as if the outside world was smiling at them and telling them that it was okay to leave. It was okay to live now. He didn't know; maybe it was still the residual effects of his memory loss haunting him.

Trowa reached his room first. He had a small amount of packing to do, and some things to prepare for tomorrow. Just like that, it was the end. But before he left Heero and this chapter of the great machine was finished, he stopped and turned in front of his doorway.

Heero was already a little ways down the hall, and he said after him, "See you later."

The Wing pilot turned and met his gaze, a question posed in his eyes. "People say that too," Trowa added.

The blue eyes that had been so hard and fierce for most of the war suddenly lapsed into a sort of grudging acceptance, and he nodded. "Yeah. See you later." And they would eventually, sometime, somehow, because they hadn't died. They had lived, and the smaller units were making a rebellion, planning anarchy as the great war machine decayed and broke down.

Heero's lips quirked in a smile as Trowa disappeared behind the door. He had some healing to do.


End file.
